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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27668470">Ghost Town</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fruitbox/pseuds/Fruitbox'>Fruitbox</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>TWICE (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Chaeyoung can see ghosts, F/F, Fluff and Angst, It's a little sad, Tzuyu is the ghost</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:09:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,700</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27668470</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fruitbox/pseuds/Fruitbox</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Chaeyoung never intends to befriend a ghost, but Tzuyu is cold and she just wants a warm duvet, and maybe a little bit more comfort from another human.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chou Tzuyu/Son Chaeyoung</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>88</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Initially, Chaeyoung wishes that the dead people are actually dead. </p><p>In the midst of ongoing eulogies, in a chapel which she has visited before, Chaeyoung sits with her hands clasped, eyes shut, because it’s better than watching the spirit rise from the dead.</p><p>She has seen her somewhere, the dead girl. But Chaeyoung only knows her full name because it has been mentioned for the fiftieth time, because her smiling portrait is displayed above the coffin, because she is already dead. </p><p>Chaeyoung is the only one who isn’t crying. And for the rest of the people that are weeping, she doesn’t think that sadness purely stems from sincere, unadulterated remorse. Because death has a thing that makes everyone much more relevant, apparently. </p><p>Soon, when the girl next to her has stopped crying, when the static of the microphone stops distorting, when the father has stepped off the podium, when the skies have turned into a symbolic grey; it begins to rain. And everything becomes better when she can finally leave.</p><p>Walking out of the chapel, where she’s holding a translucent umbrella with a painstaking hole that drips rainwater onto her shoulder until it’s wet all over her arm, there appears a distant illusion. Chaeyoung knows they’re not hallucinations. She just hopes it won’t happen this early.</p><p>The dead girl, whose name is Chou Tzuyu, who could be the previous foreign transfer student,  who could also be her classmate, is wearing her school uniform. </p><p>There’s a pack of classmates on the front porch of the entrance, and Tzuyu is the only invisible one.</p><p>She’s standing beside the lamppost that will flicker at night, beside the shrub which used to be much thicker years ago. But Tzuyu isn’t drenched in the rain. It splinters through her skin, down to her nonexistent-bones, before shattering into the pavement. </p><p>Walking away, even though Chaeyoung knows it’s unfortunately vain, she keeps her eyes trained on the sloping pavement that leads the alternative route back to her apartment. It’ll only take twenty more minutes. </p><p>It’s instinct to expect she’s being followed.</p><p>There are no footsteps when it happens, even if they’re condescended by the rain, it should be loud enough to be heard. So when the dead girl appears in front of her, Chaeyoung is mortified.</p><p>She’s not quick enough to stop, so the first few sequences of the happening are understandably confusing. Because there’s no expected collision that should propel her to the ground when you’ve bumped into something physical.</p><p>Chaeyoung just walks through the dead girl’s body.</p><p>This confirms the fact that Tzuyu is dead, and that’s the only caveat Chaeyoung needs to keep walking ahead. It’s always important not to acknowledge the presence of a ghost, not to make eye-contact, because that’s the same as saying, <em> I can see you, now tell me your story, and I might make you alive again. </em></p><p>“Can you please hear me out first?” It comes from her back, a strange whisper. “I’ve watched you talk to them a few times. The spirits, I meant.”</p><p>That should’ve been a lie because they’ve never met before this. They’re always with a few rows of seats keeping them apart. Not even their shoulders have bumped. Not even their eyes have aligned. Not even their names have been called consecutively.</p><p>“I know you can see me,” Tzuyu is pleading.</p><p>When Chaeyoung finally turns, she still refuses to meet her eyes. “Look, I’m not some paranormal expert, so if you come for me looking for help then—”</p><p>“I’m just cold.”</p><p>The cuffs of Chaeyoung’s sleeves are dripping wet. The houses that parallel the road stretch into one big water-paint panorama. Tzuyu is in the middle of everything. And her eyes are grey.</p><p>Chaeyoung wants to ask what’s that supposed to mean, if she now has to take Tzuyu home, brew hot chocolate, prepare a mattress, or turn on the heater even if...that won’t really matter. </p><p>And if Chaeyoung doesn’t want to take her home, doesn’t want a ghost lodging in her living room, Tzuyu will still tail behind her back until they reach the apartment, and there will be a ghost living in Chaeyoung’s flat.</p><p>So what she does next is kinder than a rejection; it’s more ambiguous than a straightforward welcome. Chaeyoung continues down the sloping road, and into the small complex of her apartment. Tzuyu follows from behind, maintaining a good two feet, which is polite.</p><p>When they’re inside, Chayeoung shakes the droplets off the umbrella, then plops it into a bucket that she improvises as her own personal umbrella stand, sometimes it’s a trash can, sometimes it’s just an empty bucket. </p><p>“You live alone?” Tzuyu is in the living room, her knees submerged into the settee. The lines of her calves blurring into the edges of the couch. </p><p>“Yeah,” Chaeyoung mutters.</p><p>When there’s nothing else to say, Chaeyoung looks around aimlessly. Her apartment is terribly bleak. There are no picture frames of family portraits, no slippers parked askew in the middle of the living room, no grocery lists sticking onto refrigerator doors. Not exactly the brightest. Not exactly the cleanest. And it’s the first time she realizes this. </p><p>“You’re cold, I have some extra duvet. If that’s what you want,” Chaeyoung offers.</p><p>Tzuyu nods, a single tilt. “Thank you,” </p><p>The silence is overbearing. Chaeyoung spends a good five minutes shifting from one heel to the other, before she points to the bathroom, “I’ll change.” And she’ll probably leave the duvet by the front of her door, only through the minimal slip of space before she locks it again.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>Time runs a little slower.</p><p>When she sneaks out at 9:46 p.m. because she’s hungry and she hasn’t had anything ever since the ghost in her living room, Tzuyu is crouching on the opposite wall. The duvet is folded neat, there are no wrinkles. </p><p>Tzuyu lifts her head from her crossed legs. “I thought you’ll never come out.” There’s relief in her voice. </p><p>Chaeyoung isn’t sure if she’s supposed to say anything, or if she’s supposed to walk away. When she looks at the living room, it’s dark like a cavern. </p><p>Are ghosts afraid of the dark? Is it even something Tzuyu would know?</p><p>Instead, Chaeyoung strolls into the kitchen, opens the fridge. The fluorescent light flashes her eyes, and she stands there for a while until they’ve adjusted. There’s a container of sausages, empty soda cans, three cups of noodles, and some Japanese leftover takeouts. That’ll do.</p><p>She doesn’t bother reheating it in a microwave; simply sets it up on the table and has a quiet dinner. She thinks it’s partly because she doesn’t want to be here any longer. It’s never safe to live with a ghost, even if they were classmates before.</p><p>Tzuyu drifts from the hall, and her eyes don’t hesitate as if she’s been looking at Chaeyoung the entire time. Her entire life. She floats above the chair, and it almost looks like she’s sitting.</p><p>After a while: “I’m sorry,” and Tzuyu is looking down at her hands.</p><p>Chaeyoung picks an egg roll, and it’s cold, almost frozen. </p><p>“Just give me a few days,” Tzuyu promises.</p><p>Nodding, Chaeyoung wonders if it's better to be less disapproving. Because if anything good can come from befriending a ghost, it’ll be the silent company. </p><p>“It’s okay,” Chaeyoung says, she means it as a consolation for someone who’s supposedly dead. She crumples the takeout box into smaller folds and throws it along with the wooden chopsticks into an overfilled bin. </p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>It becomes a habit.</p><p>Chayeoung will walk to school with the leaking umbrella in one hand. Tzuyu will hover a few steps behind, still wearing her school uniform.</p><p>When class starts, they will be at their respective desks. There are flowers and letters on Tzuyu’s desk, sometimes she just keeps staring at them.</p><p>When it’s lunch break, Chaeyoung will doodle the corners of her classroom, the cartoons of her classmates, the fractured wood of the seat in front of her. But not Tzuyu. Not Tzuyu who is trying to open the letters, who is trying to sniff the roses.</p><p>When school is over, she will walk home with the ghost trailing from behind, sometimes Chaeyoung turns and Tzuyu will be looking at the skies, sometimes it’s unbelievable that the girl is dead, sometimes they lock their eyes and they’re two girls wearing the same school uniform.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>It becomes a habit.</p><p>In a convenience store, Chaeyoung will pick a strawberry drink from the refrigerator. Tzuyu will be in the bread aisle, bending to read the price tag of a sandwich.  </p><p>It’s been raining a lot, and on their way home, Chaeyoung will tap her feet against the cobblestone, sheltered under the roof of the bus stop. Tzuyu will stand in the middle of the crossroad, there will be cars ramming right through her, bicycles that don’t swerve at the sight of her blocking the way.</p><p>When the bus arrives, Chaeyoung collapses the umbrella, hops in, and finds a seat that is singular. Tzuyu skips up the steps, and she will find her own amusement within the ten minutes ride. Sometimes her feet are concealed under the carpets, sometimes she stretches her arm through the head of a sleeping man, sometimes only her crown is peeking from the floorboards. </p><p>Chaeyoung will plug in her earphones, and Tzuyu will sing with the strangers on the bus. </p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>It becomes a habit.</p><p>Chaeyoung will stay up until midnight. She will draw the raindrops that race down her window pane. </p><p>Tzuyu will be sitting on the couch, watching the flashing screens of the television from a channel that Chaeyoung isn’t even sure Tzuyu would like.</p><p>If the ghost is lucky, Chaeyoung will sit on the couch. She will play her favorite movies, and sometimes Chaeyoung will see how Tzuyu’s eyes will flicker under the kaleidoscopes of colors, as it filters across the grey, as it refracts through her body like static.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>Today, she attempts to readjust the habit.</p><p>“I think I’m ready now,” Chaeyoung says after dinner. “You know, to hear your story. To talk.”</p><p>Tzuyu is in her usual nest, the couch that has become her own comfort space. She has her eyes trained at the blinking television. For a moment, Chaeyoung thinks that Tzuyu didn’t hear, so she repeats it. </p><p>“You don’t even know me, before this, do you?” Tzuyu asks, half of her shoulder is sinking into the cushion. </p><p>It’s not a friendly question.</p><p>Chaeyoung folds the takeout box into smaller pieces, like origami. When she was eight, she used to like making shapes out of this. Her mother would display them beside the vases, like trophies.</p><p>“I think I’ve seen you before. In the hallway, in the class. I mean, of course, I do.” Chaeyoung whispers. There’s something about conversing with a ghost that makes her voice smaller. The fact that it might not even be real. “But you’re always quiet. I guess. So yeah, I don’t really know you.”</p><p>When Chaeyoung looks up, Tzuyu is kinder. “Well, you’re quiet too,” she says.</p><p>Then, they share a smile. It’s dark, the light coruscating from the television does not realign into shadows behind the crook of Tzuyu’s pellucid nose, the breeze from the opened balcony does not make her hair tremble. But it’s something. It’s enough for the hologram of the ghost’s hands to seem tangible.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>Before Tzuyu died, Chaeyoung never really knew what the girl was like.</p><p>If anything, they’re complete strangers who only knew each other's names due to the daily attendance roll-call.</p><p>One evening, the class was supposed to be empty. Chaeyoung was doodling a robin that was perched on the twig of the school’s zelkova tree. She was outlining the orange feathers of its breast, until she saw a glimpse of a squatting boy.</p><p>Most of the ghosts that roamed the school halls and auditoriums were previous students that have either died of tragedy or illness. She’d never seen a boy before, and he wasn’t wearing the school uniform.</p><p>He was further in the front, crouching right below the blackboard. </p><p>The robin had flown away, leaving the twig bouncing on its flight. Chaeyoung left her seat, and when she inclined her head to peer over the small shoulder, she saw he was trying to collect the sands of the chalk that had chipped away from overuse.</p><p>He looked at her and then laughed. </p><p>From some phenomenal instinct, Chaeyoung started chuckling too. Then she squatted along with the boy and mimicked the finger that traced into the pile of chalk until it formed a smiling face. Then she kept watching the boy who had wished he could draw. </p><p>What Chaeyoung didn’t know was the other girl standing by the doorway, tall in her sports uniform, slick in her ponytail, sweating from her forehead, gaping and unmoving. And it was the first time Tzuyu had truly watched her.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>“Then I saw you again in the bleachers. You were talking to yourself.” Tzuyu says. “I guess that’s when I knew. That you could...y’know. Talk to ghosts.”</p><p>They’re sitting on the ends of the small coffee table, there’s a mug of hot chocolate, and a duvet piled above Chaeyoung’s crossed legs. The television is muted, she will turn it up when they’ve nothing to talk about.</p><p>“Weren’t you scared?” Chaeyoung asks, it’s a question she thinks of often. “I mean, people would think I’m crazy.”</p><p>Tzuyu hums. “I was, obviously. That’s why I never approached you. But I didn’t…” she frowns her brows together, “I wasn’t like. Hysterical about it.”</p><p>Chaeyoung sips her drink. </p><p>“But I wanted to know you,” Tzuyu admits, her voice grows impossibly smaller. Chaeyoung thinks it’s a good balance. “I’ve seen your drawings. They’re pretty.”</p><p>She’s never heard anyone compliment her sketches before, because nobody has seen it. And maybe she’s looking at Tzuyu with a skeptical shock, because then the ghost starts to panic.</p><p>“But it’s not like—I wasn’t. I saw when you forgot to close it. The notebook.” It’s funny because Tzuyu is blushing. And no, that doesn’t mean she is actually reddening because that won’t be possible. But Chaeyoung can sort of imagine it, how the shade will fleck Tzuyu’s cheeks until it turns into peaches.</p><p>“It’s okay,” Chaeyoung says this with a smile.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>They begin to learn together, how to find the safer aspects of their strange relationship. Tzuyu is just learning how to be a ghost and Chaeyoung is slowly learning how to accept that.</p><p>Chaeyoung is never a failing student, despite her reckless self-discipline and lack of self-control in doodling on every flat surface. But then one morning she forgets about the chemistry test, and witnessing Chaeyoung’s apparent dread, Tzuyu starts to pendulum between Mina’s test paper and hers, muttering the answers under a tickling rush of breath.</p><p>Then Chaeyoung finds herself staring at the bold <em> 100</em>, streaked red at the top margin. She realizes she should actually be thankful, but that turns out unnecessary because Tzuyu only shrugs, saying, <em> I’m just bored.  </em></p><p>Having Tzuyu around is close to becoming Chaeyoung’s favorite thing. But manipulating Chayoung’s test scores doesn’t become their little hobby, sometimes Tzuyu will tell inside stories about the people that used to be her friends. </p><p>“That’s Momo, she’s the football captain. And I think she has a crush on Sana.” The said girl is ambling through the gymnasium in a small crowd. She has a cold front, it might even be charming.</p><p>They’re at the bleachers again, where Chaeyoung used to talk with any wandering spirits if she had nothing else to do. But things are different now.</p><p>“Do you know Momo?” Tzuyu asks from the stairs. She’s been restless, running up the steps from the bottom to the top, but she never strays too far, always making sure her voice can still be heard.</p><p>“Well, I’ve heard of her. I mean, just like us, we weren’t really...friends.” That’s supposed to be true a few months ago, but she isn’t sure about it now. Chaeyoung stuffs her hands into her tracksuit pocket, looking down at her sneakers.</p><p>“Sana doesn’t know Momo,” Tzuyu is saying, like it’s supposed to mean something. “I mean, I don’t think she knows Momo like how Momo knows her.”</p><p>“In what way?” Chaeyoung finds herself asking. The tips of her shoes are bumping.</p><p>There’s a momentary silence, Chaeyoung has to look up to confirm that Tzuyu is still, in fact, a ghost, and hasn’t yet vanished. Because if that happens, maybe she’s a little less ready.</p><p>But she’s still there, and she’s making that face that usually means she’s going to say something important. And it is.</p><p>“I think I always find myself looking for you.” Then, a little softer, “even back then.”</p><p>It’s funny to say that the realization is a snap of a finger, barely shakes anything at all; it might even feel natural. Like a shirt button she’s finally fixed into the right arrangement, like remembering a missing answer of a number at the last few minutes of the test, like a song that has been playing on loop, but she only knows this when she starts singing. </p><p>Chaeyoung listens at the beat of her heart, but it does not even quicken, or is it slowing down. She stares into Tzuyu until the bulb that’s centered perfectly behind her eyes turns blinding.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Tzuyu says. Then there it is again, the possible blush. The fraying ends.</p><p>“It’s okay,” Chaeyoung thinks of something honest to say. “Me too. I mean, I do find myself looking for you, too.” It’s not entirely a lie, whereas Tzuyu might have meant that before or after she’d died, Chaeyoung is telling the half-truth because she’s never looked at anybody else ever since Tzuyu became a ghost.</p><p>And it’s worth it, even if it meant platonic, seeing the smile that stretches across Tzuyu’s face, is worth it.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>Chaeyoung sets her sketch notebook above the coffee table. Tzuyu had asked what she usually draws, and Chaeyoung thought showing was easier than listing, because she herself couldn’t have remembered every picture she’d drawn.</p><p>Her fingers are shaking a bit, because she’s never had to watch someone flip through the pages. </p><p>They’re on the fifth page, and Tzuyu is staring down at the blinking lamppost and the thin shrub. Chaeyoung remembers drawing it out of memory. It’s never a good feeling when she has to.</p><p>Tzuyu throws her a look, “the chapel?”</p><p>“Someone else.” It is Chaeyoung’s way of saying, <em> not about you. </em>And she doesn’t know why she has to convince herself.</p><p>The tenth page is the blackboard. There’s a boy crouching below, and he’s drawing a smiling face into the chalk pile. “Is this what you were laughing about?” Tzuyu asks.</p><p>“Yes.” There’s a fond smile, Chaeyoung wishes she can draw every ghost she’s met. Even if it’s only from afar. “I didn’t know why I laughed. I just thought it was silly.”</p><p>“That he’s drawing?”</p><p>Chaeyoung feels her heart sink. “No...It's just. It didn’t look like he knew he was dead.” Sometimes Chaeyoung likes the rain because she can hide her face under the canopy, and the spirits won’t know that she’s a little different than everyone else. She doesn’t have to see their faces, she doesn’t have to feel so useless.</p><p>“Something like that can happen?” </p><p>Chaeyoung nods. She isn’t sure which is better, to know or to stay oblivious. Because Tzuyu can’t even look at her anymore, and the outline of her fingers are trembling.</p><p>The last page is a surprise even for Chaeyoung. </p><p>Maybe it was some time ago, when Chaeyoung had drawn every corner of the classroom, every face of her classmates, every bird that is perched above the zelkova twig. Because there is Tzuyu, and they can tell because of the school uniform that always looks a little too small for her stature, or the big doll-eyes that always looks at a single point.</p><p>It’s her first time, feeling the stumble. Like a hitch, Chaeyoung can listen to her own heart pumping louder. She is sort of afraid to look up, maybe to see the rejection in Tzuyu’s eyes, to see that nothing happens in Tzuyu’s eyes. But when she does, Tzuyu is smiling.</p><p>It’s a silly one. Like that time she helps with the chemistry test, she has the same smile. It means: this secret is safe with me. </p><p>She can’t help it, the little blossom in her chest. When she rolls her eyes, she no longer hides her own grin. “Don’t make fun of me.”</p><p>“I’m not.” But Tzuyu is laughing. “I wish I can keep this.”</p><p>Chaeyoung is feeling a little proud. “Then I’ll just keep it open.” </p><p>“We should recreate it. Someday.”</p><p>She doesn’t know how this will last. If one day, Tzuyu will vanish to a hidden afterlife. If one day, her time is up, and Tzuyu is back to being dead. If one day, Tzuyu chooses to leave Chaeyoung behind. Or worse, if Tzuyu is never real from the start. </p><p>But, “okay.” Recreating her should be enough to make her permanent.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>The first time she realized she could be different, she hadn’t yet understood everything. </p><p>When the ghost of her mother rose from the grave, the weeping family members didn’t stop crying, and Chaeyoung didn’t run away. She didn’t know yet. In some stubborn conviction, she couldn’t have accepted the fact that her mother was just like everyone else.</p><p>She had thought it was simply a fact. That her mother wouldn’t have gone that easily. Chaeyoung had always thought there was some kind of cosmic shield that defended her mother from anything that would take her away. Maybe it was only another round of hide and seek, because Chaeyoung would always find her in the end.</p><p>But this time it was different. How could her mother be so dense, she could’ve hidden behind the pillars of the chapel, inside the confessional, but she was only crouching by the mound of soil. Chaeyoung could tell something was amiss, she didn’t even have to count. So she kept standing there, and people might think she’s actually grieving.</p><p>When everyone else had dispersed back into the chapel, Chaeyoung stayed. She thought of the pebbles and gravels that might prick at her mother’s bare feet. </p><p>A few hours later: </p><p>“Mom,” when her father was walking closer. </p><p>“Mom, let’s go home,” when her mother was looking up and saw that Chaeyoung was waiting.</p><p>Her mother had smiled, a painful expression, it hurt to even look. “Go home, I’ll be back in a few days.” It wasn’t a game of hide and seek anymore. </p><p>When her father took Chaeyoung’s hand and brought her home, through the drone of the car, the flashing trees, and the little bumps over her knees, she realized her mother was dead. But not entirely. </p><p>The next morning, she ran back into the graveyard. Her father thought she was there to mourn. He wiped his forehead and then his eyes, but he wasn’t sweating. </p><p>When she stood over the soil, her mother’s ghost had vanished, or maybe it was never there from the start. Lifting her eyes, she looked around, and there were the transparent bodies rising from the earth, some had watched Chaeyoung in her freight, some kept sitting on their graves, some meandered out of the gates, she thought it was maybe to return home.</p><p>“It’ll be okay,” her father soothed her shoulder. </p><p>She didn’t know the sun had sunk, when the lamppost beside the shrub had started to flicker. Chaeyoung could cry, because in the sea of lifting corpses, the mother she was looking for wasn’t there. </p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>Now that she’s older, sometimes she’ll look back into the memory and think. It’s quite unfair that Chaeyoung never really knows what happened to her mother. Or what her mother was thinking when she was never seen again. Maybe she had a separate family, maybe she was never a ghost from the start, maybe she had never liked being a mother.</p><p>And when Chayeoung would be sketching the tenth outline of the flickering lamppost and its shrub, she would wonder what would happen if she hadn’t said, <em> mom let’s go home, </em>if she had never acknowledged the spirit of her dead mother. Would that change anything? Maybe she might consider, to see Chaeyoung for the last time.</p><p>“I never got to ask you,” Chaeyoung says, staring at the creviced waveforms of the ceiling. “When you asked me if you could stay here, I didn’t know it would be this long.” It has almost been a month, where their habits have overlapped and they start to share this minimalistic life where only two exist, and the rest is background noise. Chaeyoung doesn’t think much of it at first, but then she wonders of a life without Tzuyu, and she’ll think of the sketchbook that won’t have any purpose to remain open.</p><p>When there’s nothing but the clink of the air conditioner, Chaeyoung turns to her side and Tzuyu looks almost apologetic. </p><p>Chaeyoung has to say, “I’m not...you know--I don’t mind having you. I think I like that most,” Tzuyu quirks a little slip of smile. </p><p>She is laying on the spread-out duvet across the floor. The television is muted, Chaeyoung thinks it’ll always stay muted. “I don’t think I’m brave enough.” Her eyes blink together with the television screen, “to visit my grave, or anywhere close to home. Sometimes it scares me so much that I hope I’m truly dead instead. That’ll make more sense than being in this stupid limbo. Because I know I’ll recognize someone, and-” </p><p>Tzuyu never says what’s next.</p><p>But Chaeyoung understands. Sort of. She’s not a ghost, but she thinks if she’s one, she’ll hate looking at her family, or friends, or anyone really, because then she’ll wish she’s alive. That’s probably the cruelest thing about being half-dead.</p><p>“It’s okay,” Chaeyoung whispers, she’s used to this. </p><p>Their hands should be touching. The ends of Chaeyoung’s fingertips are electric cold against Tzuyu’s holographic ones, like a constant hue of ice pooling over her nails. It’s the same effect when Tzuyu will lean close enough to peek over her drawings, and she’ll laugh or mumble a, <em> that’s pretty </em>and her heart will skip again.</p><p>“Do you think I will stay this way forever?” Tzuyu asks. </p><p>“As a ghost?” But Chaeyoung doesn’t say <em> miserable</em>, because that’s too realistic.</p><p>“That too.”</p><p>Chaeyoung doesn’t really know. Since she was eight, she’s never had a spirit friend that has stayed long enough to encounter their spiritual life cycle. So she never knows what happens to a ghost, or what happens to the dead body. Because her mother's disappearance can just be part of the natural cycle, just like humans. Maybe.</p><p>“I don’t know. I told you, I’m not an expert,” she releases a bitter laugh. “I said that the first time we met.”</p><p>It’s sweet, that they’ve reached an intimacy where there’s the possibility for her to look back into the past and say, <em> this reminds me of when we... </em>and she doesn’t want to stop recollecting. She doesn’t want the future to stop.</p><p>“That wasn’t why I called you,” Tzuyu laughs, “I was just...I wanted to know you.”</p><p>Then Chaeyoung says something a little risky. “You can say it, that you had a crush on me back then.” Chaeyoung doesn’t have to look to know that Tzuyu is hiding her face behind her hands. </p><p>“That’s not fair,” she mumbles, flustered.</p><p>After a while, when they share a few silence, with the clink of the air conditioner, the flickers of the television, and the crevices of the ceiling that doesn’t rip apart to tear her whole apartment into shambles, Chaeyoung thinks of something unsafe to ask.</p><p>“But do you...do you want to go?” Chaeyoung can’t really look at the girl, she’s only hoping that Tzuyu will say the right thing, or if she won’t, then lie.</p><p>“To...stop being a ghost?”</p><p>Chaeyound nods to the ceiling.</p><p>“No.” It doesn’t even need some thinking. </p><p>Sometimes being with Tzuyu is simple and that’s the best part of it. They don’t have to talk much, they don’t even have to touch. Every second is delicate and small, they listen to each heartbeat, to each gentle breathing. They don’t have to be anywhere else. Just as her heart is steady, warm, and loved. Just where Tzuyu is, her comfort, her friend, her ghost. “You promised to draw me.” </p><p>There are a few things shifting, or maybe realigning, and it’s in moments when Tzuyu is laying on her side, unabashed with the way her eyes are scintillating in colors that are no longer grey, lips helplessly curved upwards, and hands that shouldn’t be as cold if she’s any other human. </p><p>“What comes after?” Chaeyoung is closing her eyes. </p><p>“You’ll draw me the second time,” the voice is getting closer. “And the third.” The tip of her nose feels the little frost biting down the slope. “Nothing will change and you’ll never get sick of drawing me.” Tzuyu is laughing, and it breathes against her own breath and she’s freezing, but that won’t matter because Chaeyoung will draw Tzuyu until she’s not a ghost, until she’s alive, until she’s warm enough to hold at night.</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>One evening, Tzuyu is running up the hill of the neighborhood’s park. It’s been there for decades ever since it has been cleared out from the remains of the older buildings. Now, it’s an empty land, but soon there will be little forests growing from the saplings.</p><p>When they’ve settled on a raggedy bench that has started to discolor, Tzuyu sits on the grass ahead of her. </p><p>“Make yourself comfortable, this will take a while,” Chaeyoung says, piling her drawing set on the bench.</p><p>“How should I pose,” Tzuyu starts lifting her hand in a peace sign. “Is this good?”</p><p>Chayoung chortles, “We’re not taking a picture.” She flips open the sketchbook and finds a fresh page. </p><p>“Are you going to paint me?” Tzuyu inclines her head to peek. It’s one of the quirks Chaeyoung has learned, that the girl is naturally curious.</p><p>“I’m not good with paint, I was only planning to sketch you and maybe do some coloring.” Chaeyoung sharpens the dull pencil. Beside her feet, there’s a small lunchbox she has prepared for lunch, in case the drawing will take longer. Sometimes, to make-do Tzuyu’s inability to consume, Chaeyoung will lay two sandwiches over the plates, and Tzuyu will play along and pretend they’re having a quiet picnic together. </p><p>In sync with the breeze, Tzuyu hums a song that has no particular melody. She’s never looked this calm before. “You know, I’ve actually been here before.” </p><p>Chaeyoung starts with the outline, she always likes to draw the face first. Then, the rest of everything else.</p><p>“My parents brought me here when I was younger, I think I was about eight years old? It’s a pretty rusty memory.” </p><p>Nodding, Chaeyoung darts up to catch Tzuyu’s smile and starts to trace a crescent, then a little slip of teeth. </p><p>“Did you know it used to be a playground? I remembered playing with the swing. It’s a three-set, so it’s perfect for the family. I’m in the middle, and occasionally my dad will push from behind.” </p><p>There’s the dimple, Chaeyoung smiles at this. None of her classmates has dimples quite like Tzuyu, and even if they do, Chaeyoung won’t like it more. Tzuyu’s are perfect to draw, little concave curves at the ends of her lips. She’s beautiful.</p><p>“Then we’ll have a small picnic by a tree. It’s no longer here, but it used to be huge,” Tzuyu gestures with her arms, “I saw a sugar glider once and thought to name it, but I think it was gone the day after. I was really happy back then. It’s not even that special, we just played by the swings and had some kimbap before dusk.”</p><p>Chaeyoung can tell it’s a beautiful memory. From the way Tzuyu seems to sparkle with each recollection and the lilts of her voice that keeps rising with each exciting momentum of her childhood. She has the charm of perfect sincerity. She can’t lie through her eyes, everything is as transparent. Maybe that’s supposed to be funny.</p><p>When there’s nothing left to say, Tzuyu will stare at Chaeyoung.</p><p>“You have pretty eyes,” Chaeyoung mumbles, absentmindedly. She’s sketching the lashes, how it flutters against the wind. When she trails down, she catches Tzuyu’s eyes, and it’s widened to an extent that her brows reach her hairline. Chuckling, Chaeyoung asks, “what?”</p><p>“You can’t just say something like that.” She’s frowning.</p><p>Chaeyoung bends in laughter, she thinks it’s the loudest she’s ever laughed before. </p><p>“That’s not fair,” Tzuyu mumbles, feigning a kick on Chaeyoung’s feet.</p><p>Chaeyoung spins her pencil. “Okay, relax your eyes, I’m trying to make you look natural. Not horrified.”</p><p>In her periphery, Tzuyu rolls her eyes. “Should I continue the story?”</p><p>“It doesn’t even have a plot,” she mumbles, shaping the angle of Tzuyu’s brows.</p><p>“I can just start running away,” Tzuyu protests.</p><p>“You’ll sabotage your own portrait?” Chaeyoung glimmers with a taunting smirk.</p><p>Sighing, Tzuyu grits her teeth in the shape of her smile. It’s like they can’t help it when they’re together, they’ll keep smiling at the little things. Even if it’s not remotely funny, Chaeyoung will like Tzuyu enough to laugh.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>They don’t finish the portrait that day, because it starts raining when the sun has dipped into the hill. Chaeyoung buys an umbrella in a convenience store, and Tzuyu is always in the bread aisle.</p><p>Running across the empty pavement, sometimes Tzuyu will turn and laugh, “the rain is actually pretty when you don’t get wet from it.”</p><p>At this, Chaeyoung will laugh it off, or roll her eyes, sometimes she’ll kick her shoe to send a helpless splash. But mostly, she just says nothing and takes it as it is. </p><p>She’s drawing Tzuyu in her mind, memorizing the wrinkles of her nose when she laughs too hard, the dimples that sink deeper when she’s smiling too hard, the shape of her eyes when she’s looking at Chaeyoung and sometimes she will think, and she won’t like how it’ll sound, but what’s so bad about liking a ghost a little too much?</p><p>“Chaeyoung,” Tzuyu calls, she’s a few steps ahead and the road is still empty. The universe can be kind at times. “I think I might remember you forever."</p><p>Chaeyoung hugs the sling bag closer to her chest, she can’t risk the drawing to catch the wet. “You mean, this? Right now?” </p><p>“No, just you.” She’s walking backward and Chaeyoung thinks her eyes are glowing, like she’s looking at a sunset. It must mean something, but the rain has always been the problem. “Even if, you know, I’m dead again or, in the afterlife.”</p><p>Sometimes Tzuyu doesn’t feel real. She’s a fabric of glass; breaks so easily and completely untainted.</p><p>And Chaeyoung doesn’t mean to be pessimistic, “I’m sorry, I don’t think there’s an afterlife.” Chaeyoung is hoping she doesn’t sound so glum, “and even if there is, I don’t think you will remember. Like the memories won’t actually stay. Because if they do, then heaven won’t be heaven, we’ll spend eternity grieving and it won’t be a good place.”</p><p>There’s no warning when it happens the second time. Chaeyoung blindly walks through a stagnant Tzuyu that stops mid-track. When she turns around, Tzuyu is refracting on her ends. She might even vanish. “I was kind of hoping you’d say the same thing.” She says, timid.</p><p>Chayeoung blinks, the clutch of her umbrella loosening. “You mean...to remember you forever?”</p><p>Tzuyu is quiet, which is synonymous with a hesitant <em> yes. </em></p><p>"I guess, I will. I think I might want to,” and Chaeyoung doesn’t say<em> but I don’t even know if you’re real, or if you’re just something in my head. </em>Because that might feel too sudden to be true.</p><p>“I hate being a ghost,” Tzuyu says, her voice doesn’t strain anymore. It sounds like an attempt to readjust them into a happier lane. “I have so much food that I’d want to eat. Then you start regretting the time you wasted all those refrigerated take-outs.”</p><p>Chaeyoung chuckles, despite it sounding pathetic. “I cook really good noodles.”</p><p>“Maybe one day.” It’s not a promise.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>It becomes a careful habit.</p><p>At night, when Tzuyu thinks Chaeyoung won’t know, she will lay on the empty side of the bed that Chaeyoung intentionally leaves a space for. It’s a quiet invitation. She’s never someone who has a lot to say.</p><p>Tzuyu doesn’t really sleep. Chaeyoung doesn’t have to tell the girl but sometimes when Tzuyu is near, it gets too cold, she’ll have to shrink into the covers. It’s her kind of sacrifice. It’s a small offering.</p><p>Sometime at four, Chaeyoung opens her eyes. Tzuyu flushes, straightens and scutters off the bed. She looks like she’s going to run away.</p><p>“It’s okay,” Chaeyoung whispers, because it’s night, because Tzuyu looks like she’s about to break.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she says with the moon behind her shoulder.</p><p>“Why are you always sorry,” Chaeyoung rolls to the side, adjusting her shirt before leaning against the headboard.</p><p>Tzuyu looks down at her hands. She doesn't say anything for a long time until the bedframe creaks, “It gets too quiet in the living room.”</p><p>There’s a great current of guilt washing over Chaeyoung. Tzuyu never shows it hurts, to live knowing you’re dead, with the struggle of trying to pry open the letters on her desk when she knows her friends have been grieving, the constant need to hold herself from running back home even if that might be the single thing Tzuyu wants when she's all alone and Chaeyoung isn't there to make it better. </p><p>So when Chaeyoung sleeps and it’s night, does Tzuyu think of how she died when it’s quiet? Does she have nightmares even when she's not asleep? Does she crouch by the front of the door, waiting for a pile of duvet to stay warm, or to just be held one last time. </p><p>Chaeyoung wishes she could be dead too.</p><p>“You can stay here,” Chaeyoung says.</p><p>Tzuyu looks up from her fingers, “really?” </p><p>Nodding, Chaeyoung shifts to the side. She takes the remote control on her desk and turns off the air conditioner. </p><p>When they’re side by side, with Chaeyoung cocooned in the blanket like an egg roll and Tzuyu that only watches the ceilings flash with the headlights of passing cars, they silently hope this to last forever.</p><p>Maybe in the morning, the first thing Chaeyoung will do isn’t to open her eyes, but to pray, even if she might not believe. The fear of waking to an empty bed, empty living room, and empty apartment, is clawing at her chest with each slip of daylight. She’ll listen to the air, or feel the tingles of her skin. If Tzuyu is there, she might hum a song without lyrics, she might make the world colder, and they’ll walk to school together, to the convenience store, to the park. </p><p>She’ll finish the drawing before it will start to fade.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>They’re somewhere in the backfield of the school’s courtyard. Chaeyoung hasn’t skipped a class before, so it’s a new exciting thrill when she hears the bell ringing and yet she’s watching Tzuyu laying on the field, her arms shading her eyes from the sun.</p><p>“I can draw you like this,” Chaeyoung calls out.</p><p>She doesn’t have the sketchbook, it remains open by the coffee table, she thinks it’s better to keep it that way. Even if she’s living with a spirit, there are still traces that show she’s real.</p><p>“I can’t feel the grass, that’s a little bit sad,” Tzuyu says when Chaeyoung is walking over.</p><p>She sprawls herself on the grass, its blade brushing the base of her arms. She can’t be staring up at the sun while it's glaring down at her, so she looks at her right and it doesn’t even startle her anymore that Tzuyu is already looking back.</p><p>Sometimes Chaeyoung wonders if this is how Tzuyu will love someone, completely bare and lucid. If this is how they’ll be, if things are a little different. </p><p>“You really like it that much?” There’s a slip of a grin, “looking at me.”</p><p>Tzuyu turns away, smiling, and maybe blushing. It’s sweet. </p><p>“You might think it’s silly.” She’s mumbling, her voice lower than the wind. “These days I keep thinking, how it’ll feel like to...y’know, hold your hand.” </p><p>It’s the way Tzuyu can say those lines so easily without batting an eye, that Chaeyoung might have stared a little too long. And she’s not supposed to, because then Tzuyu might take it as a small rejection, because then she's biting at her lower lip </p><p>“Do you like me?” Chaeyoung asks, it might be the right time.</p><p>She can see how Tzuyu is making a fist over the grass. She doesn't have to be cruel to herself. “I think...I think I might like you even more.” And it’s supposed to be delicate, tender, but Tzuyu says it like it’s a wrong thing. “I really really like you.” She’s looking at Chaeyoung.</p><p>It might not be the appropriate reaction, but something in Chaeyoung bubbles out a small laughter. It’s bad, because Tzuyu now has her back on her. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to be shy.” Chaeyoung sits up so she can look at Tzuyu. “Come on, it’s cute.” </p><p>“It’s just that--” Tzuyu stands before Chaeyoung can reach her. “I don’t think I’ll need to filter myself anymore. Because I’m dead and it’s like...it won’t matter anymore. Right?”</p><p>When Tzuyu turns around, Chaeyoung is no longer laughing. </p><p>“Do you know what happened to me?” Tzuyu whispers, she’s crouching on the field, her pliant fingers playing with the unperturbed grass.</p><p>In the chapel, Chaeyoung didn’t really listen, wasn’t really there when Tzuyu was lowered into the ground. There it is again, the guilt. It’s slowly strangling her, she might even cry. “I’m sorry, it’s not like I…” she thinks of something nicer, but stops trying in the end. There’s no point, really, in making excuses. “I’m sorry.”</p><p>“You know, if I’m not a ghost, we might never really know each other.” Tzuyu is small across the field. She might even sink with how weightless she is. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing.”</p><p>“It is,” Chaeyoung is never an optimistic person, but maybe for this temporary companionship, she will try. “I don’t think it’s important to measure the good or bad. If you’re happy now, then...I think that’s enough.” </p><p>When Tzuyu finally speaks, she is quivering in the seams. </p><p>“It was a car, it ran into me.” Tzuyu is saying, she can’t look up anymore, it’s glued down on the grass. “I don’t really like remembering it, but I can still tell you what it’s like. You know, when it hit me. I can hear the crack, I don’t know if it’s the car, it might even be the bones.” </p><p>She wets her lip, “and then the head, and then it’s wet all over my neck, and then the ambulance.” It’s daunting how Tzuyu doesn’t stutter. How Chaeyoung stops breathing for a second. “I think the pain was too shocking, so I don’t really remember that.”</p><p>Tzuyu lays both palms onto the earth. </p><p>Chaeyoung wishes she knows what to say in this situation. If it’s better to stay silent, or to say something gratifying. When her mother died, her father kept telling her it would be okay even if they knew it was a lie, he kept saying that until he stopped and left. Maybe it was the burden, the baggage of her existence. She never really knew. Her parents never really gave an explanation when they left.</p><p>“Chaeyoung, I don’t really want to lie right now,” when she looks up, Tzuyu is bending her head low. Like the day she waited by the front of her door. Like the way her mother crouched by the grave. “I really feel like crying, and I’d want you to hug me, but that’s not possible.”</p><p>It is something tightening, a painful empathy that humanizes her. When she begins crouching beside Tzuyu, trying to feel something when she reaches her hand out, trying to be gentle when Tzuyu keeps her head bowed, trying to make amends even if it’s not her part, she really wants the world to stop killing all these ghosts that she can’t help.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>When they’re home, Chaeyoung brews a cup of hot chocolate, folds the usual pile of duvet, finds the sketchbook on the coffee table, turns on the television but only to mute it again. </p><p>She flips open the sketchbook and Tzuyu is already sitting by the other end. It becomes a habit, that Chaeyoung will draw while Tzuyu tells her aimless stories. It’s usually just a snippet of her childhood, the day she owns her first pet, the day she got a perfect mark in math, the day her mother took her to the zoo, the day she lost her first toy. </p><p>It’s endearing, that she keeps track of those moments like a personal diary in her head. Chaeyoung wishes to jot it down on her own paper and have it played in her own memory when Tzuyu won’t be there to recite anymore.</p><p>For a while, it doesn’t feel like time has passed. When Tzuyu has existed in her life for more than days to count. It’s not forever, but it’s a small portion of that remaining.</p><p>“I had a bunny when I was twelve. I named him Chewy because of my name.” Tzuyu bares her perfect teeth. </p><p>Chaeyoung chuckles, her pencil shaking in accordance. “You’re going to ruin the drawing.”</p><p>“He likes cabbage leaves the most, and I used to have a small garden in my backyard. So every afternoon I will let him play there.” Tzuyu smiles. “A month after having him, our backyard is almost a little forest. All for his sake.” Then it fades, a little. “One day I had to let him go into a real forest. Because I’ll be moving away, and my parents won’t be home for work. I think I had cried the most for him.”</p><p>Chaeyoung stops the shading and looks up for a while. She smiles and finds that Tzuyu is fine. “He’ll be happier there.”</p><p>Chaeyoung meant it as a consolation, and Tzuyu must know that too. But then Tzuyu scoffs, starting her usual frivolity. “I was really good to him, and I know he’ll miss me more than that forest.” </p><p>“Okay, sure.” Chaeyoung is saying under a chuckle. "Don’t smile too hard now," her fingers are clutching the pencil gently as she sketches the tilt of Tzuyu’s lips.</p><p>“Which part are you drawing?”</p><p>“The lips,”</p><p>This earns a painful silence, even if Chaeyoung is busy enough to keep her head off of it, it doesn’t fail to make her stop and look.</p><p>Tzuyu is blinking with her eyes stretched open and lips slightly parted. Chaeyoung thinks it’s the perfect opportunity to sketch the static outline, but she can’t really look away.</p><p>And in this, she realizes that sometimes you can just see how someone starts to fall in love through the measures of their expression, the oscillations in their irises, the angles of their brows, the heaves of each breath. And sometimes you’ll allow yourself to stop, put down the pencil, let your elbows knock over the desk as you lean in, taste the hesitation within the first few touches, and fall in love together.</p><p>Although their heads are supposed to be bumping, their lips are supposed to be touching, it’s sad that there’s only the breath of cold air when it actually happens.</p><p>But Chaeyoung doesn’t move, doesn’t recline like she's embarrassed, she stays that way and hopes that by some miracle, she can feel the warmth.</p><p>There’s the ghost of fingers hovering by her cheek, and it sends shivers down Chaeyoung’s neck. It might have brushed the stray slip of Chaeyoung’s hair, and if Tzuyu is real, it’s supposed to tickle her skin as it’s fixed behind her ear.</p><p>“You don’t know how much I’ve waited to have this,” Tzuyu says, it’s a different kind of tremble, a different kind of desperate. Chaeyoung feels it too, the strangle holding at her chest, something constricting. </p><p>This doesn’t have to be sad, they don’t have to be miserable, but when Tzuyu leans her head on Chaeyoung’s shoulder, she lets it all crumble. </p><p>That night, Chaeyoung doesn’t sleep. Tzuyu doesn’t ask why, maybe she understands. That sometimes, even if Chaeyoung knows it will happen soon, she still wants to see it from her own eyes. If she’s lucky, they might have the proper farewell.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>They don’t really tally the remaining days, but if there’s any measurement to calculate this extended time, there are only the two complete sketchbooks displayed above the coffee table as evidence.</p><p>On any occasion, no matter how inconsequential, be it a single stroke of light glimpsing through Tzuyu’s eyes as a shade brighter than grey, Chaeyoung finds her pen in her back pocket and draws out a picture she hopes to remain permanent.</p><p>There has to be an easier method, to keep Tzuyu in a time capsule, like a camera, into polaroids. But she intends her ways to be sincere, and the difference between a portrait and a snapshot is the layers and shades of a pencil that collaborates to create a single, pathetic line. Before it turns into a face, before it turns into a memory.</p><p>Tzuyu is laying on the bed and as they watch the ceilings, Chaeyoung pretends that this is enough.</p><p>“Do you think that...maybe we should go out more?” Tzuyu starts, her voice inquisitive, testing this new budding relationship.</p><p>Their bond isn’t entirely pliant, it’s not as polite as it seems. Though they don’t say much on a regular basis, it’s not really because they’re hesitant of crossing certain invisible boundaries, but more because they’re fragile people by nature, with less to say and prefer more to absorb the atmosphere, to feel each other’s existence in subtle flexes from their almost-touching fingers.</p><p>“I thought you’re afraid.” And they’re honest people. They don’t really hide behind a cloak.</p><p>“I think I’m ready now.” </p><p>Chaeyoung smiles, though Tzuyu isn’t watching.</p><p>There’s this pacing, too, about them. They don’t rush, even if time is perhaps leaking out in a distant ticking clock that they’re not aware of. But there’s the more important aspects in this hourglass of a lifetime: the value in each careful step they take, each crafted word they speak, and each deliberate stroke of a pencil’s graphite across her sketchbook.</p><p>“Then we should,” Chaeyoung says. “Tomorrow?”</p><p>Tzuyu turns to her side. “What about school?” Her tone reprimanding.</p><p>There’s the new rush of defiance pulsating in her veins every so often. Sometimes, Tzuyu turns her into a completely different person. “School can wait.” Chaeyoung leans into the pillow as they revel in humble laughter.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>They begin a temporary sort of excursion.</p><p>When they’ve normally preferred to seclude themselves into quiet corners of a classroom, to inch towards the empty pavement of the street, and to be anywhere else where everyone isn’t, there’s a great divergence when suddenly they’re walking in the same big street like the rest of the real people.</p><p>It’s a small recreational to fill in the empty holes of both their lives. A cliched checkbox of what-would-you-want-to-do-before-you-die kind of list. The first time Chaeyoung thought of it, she wondered if it'd be appropriate for her to laugh. But then, they’ve sort of acknowledged that whatever they are is going to be doomed at the very end anyway. </p><p>It’s a mutual agreement to make most of their remaining time, though they never truly admitted the <em>doom </em>as a real thing, as to avoid it as much as possible, it still doesn’t change the fact that they’re still learning to know each other better. </p><p>Chaeyoung brings Tzuyu to places that increasingly expand in size. It starts with a local restaurant near the neighborhood, Chaeyoung plugs in her earphones to make a pretense of talking through a phone call when in fact there’s Tzuyu on the other side, smiling absurdly, and gawking at the plate of jajangmyeon.</p><p>Sometimes, Chaeyoung will take a glance at the side reflection of the window pane and see their alternate existence in another parallel universe. If only Tzuyu’s surface is a little more solid, a little more flesh, people may start believing they exist.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>They keep up the temporary excursion.</p><p>Through her finals week, Chaeyoung is snowed under textbook pages and lecture videos. Perhaps Tzuyu might sulk when she’s not enough attention, and the ghost is usually patient and abiding, but now she’s sullen in a corner beside the window, crouched with her knees under her chin; sometimes she’ll stare into the moon.</p><p>“You can get a scholarship with my help,” Tzuyu tells her one night. </p><p>Chaeyoung has had her fifth can of coffee, and her head is malfunctioning even for a short conversation. “That’s not really fair.” Streaks of neon lined across a term she doesn’t understand. She’ll look it up later. </p><p>There’s a gruff, a silent breeze, before Tzuyu’s head pops from the surface of the page. Chaeyoung jolts, screeches her chair backward. She’s not quick enough to be upset, when Tzuyu says, “I don’t think we’re in a position to consider what’s fair and not,” </p><p>Her decapitated head is right above the page, her icy breath might’ve left a trail across the highlighted terms. </p><p>Chaeyoung huffs, regaining her calm. “What’s that supposed to mean,” </p><p>Tzuyu quirks her lip, slightly offended. “You should be more willing to bend the rules,” then she moves to lean closer to Chaeyoung. They’ve become quite inseparable, even within a few distances. Tzuyu rests her head on the lap, and this will soon become a recurring habit. An endearing one. </p><p>“The world is already unfair to you.” She trails the skin of Chaeyoung’s exposed ankle. “Are morals really important right now?”</p><p>“I don’t think--” Chaeyoung stops to purse her lips, to squint her eyes in thoughtfulness, “our situation isn’t really--you know, an excuse to rebel.”</p><p>Tzuyu frowns, still obstinate. “But then you’re willing to skip a few days of school to be with me?”</p><p>Chaeyoung smiles, inch her fingers to test the hair on her lap. “That’s more forgivable.”</p><p>Tzuyu sighs, “you shouldn’t be too timid,” she’s drawing circles on Chaeyoung’s toes. “Being a little selfish is fine.” Her voice turns a little smaller, maybe she realizes its deception.</p><p>“That’s not a good way to live,” Chaeyoung whispers, there’s a delicate force holding her in this short instance. She bends down and lowers her hand enough to pat Tzuyu’s head, it’s a good make-believe. “I’m not being timid. I want to live an honest life.”</p><p>Tzuyu lays her palm above Chaeyoung’s upper hand, an ice blanket above pulsating warmth. “This,” she hisses. “This is unfair.”</p><p>Chaeyoung considers, if she’s to be persuaded, will she risk everything to run away with this ghost? She might, at this moment, a torn crevasse is being peeled apart so pliantly, it’s almost willing. If there’s no aid to stop the bleeding, she’ll at least revel in this generous pain. </p><p>“Then we should make the most of our time.” It’s not a good resolve.</p><p>“Don’t say it like they’re empty words,” Tzuyu has the voice of a moping child.</p><p>“They’re not,” Chaeyoung smiles, easily. It used to be hard to find an effort to be optimistic, but it gets easier when they’re together. Tzuyu smoothes her into something kinder. </p><p>Chaeyoung glances at the alarm clock above her desk. “How about the convenience store?”</p><p>Tzuyu brightens, lifts her head in delight. “It’s midnight,” a protest, but still hopeful.</p><p>“Luckily, it’s twenty-four hours.”</p><p>Tzuyu leaps in divine light, her radiance is almost blinding. She doesn’t stop the bounce in her steps when Chaeyoung is putting on her sweater, partnered with a long coat. </p><p>Tzuyu runs across the pavement when Chaeyoung is blowing hot breath into her hands. “If you’re not waiting for me, I’m leaving,” a small taunt.</p><p>Tzuyu scrambles back like sensing a treat waving on Chaeyoung's hand. </p><p>“Let’s slow down, okay, we don’t want to rush, remember?”</p><p>Each time they leave the apartment is a fragment of a bigger adventure. Tzuyu makes her world magical. It doesn’t matter in the end, if she’s only a pathetic creation out of loneliness, or if she’s been real all along, and why does that have to matter when she’ll lose both in the end?</p><p>“In the next life, I’ll buy you a baguette, or...I don’t know, a croissant.” Chayeoung says, watching as Tzuyu reads the price tag of a sandwich. </p><p>“No, you don’t have to.” Tzuyu murmurs, her back still turned to Chaeyoung. She’s reading the expiration date. “You just have to exist, Chaeyoung, I’m not asking for much.”</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>They’re starting to like this temporary excursion.</p><p>On the bus ride back home, Chaeyoung will lean her head against the glass to fall asleep and Tzuyu will make funny faces to a child who’s seemingly partial to watching Tzuyu’s shadows twisting across the flooring.</p><p>In times of revision, Tzuyu hums a song that she might already have a title for, might have written simple lyrics in her head though it’s always different each time.</p><p>Midnight, Chaeyoung will take a stroll through the neighborhood alleys, and though it’s never intentional, they end up trespassing into abandoned homes, catching butterflies in the air of wilting lawns, watching the sun shifting with the moon from the ramshackle swing, hopscotching across cracked pavements with the daybreak on their side. </p><p>This feels like a world fitting for two.</p><p>The walk back home is tranquil, they’ve exhausted a lot of their exhilaration, that they’re left saying nothing and listening much to everything.</p><p>In the subtle footprints left behind from Chaeyoung's muddy soles, she thinks of a heartache buried deep in postponement. Then Tzuyu is there, barely leaving a stamp of her shoe. It’s terrible to notice all these differences and play a stage to pretend everything’s going to be fine.</p><p>When they’ve nothing left to listen, Tzuyu will walk in tune with Chaeyoung's labored steps. She might’ve caught on to Chaeyoung’s melancholy through this habitual walk back home, because this is what she does every time, maybe as an act of consolation, though it’s never clear.</p><p>Tzuyu stretches her hand out with an incline to her head, a signal to mirror. Chaeyoung lifts her left and sinks her own into Tzuyu’s intangible right. In a tilt, Tzuyu will smile and say <em>it's going to be okay, </em>though she never says them out loud. It’s only something Chaeyoung believes she would say.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>The signs of winter don’t really interfere with their temporary excursions.</p><p>Through the bus ride back home, Chaeyoung doesn’t sleep because she’s willing to spend even the most insignificant patterns with Tzuyu, who’s now gaping over the wagging tail of a dog, leash tied around a pole. </p><p>Walking down the pavement, Chaeyoung leaves her left hand empty so it might grab the chance of colliding into Tzuyu’s own. Even if it’s quite cold outside the pocket of her coat.</p><p>“We should go somewhere else,” Tzuyu says when they’re only a few blocks away from the apartment. </p><p>Chaeyoung raises a question with her brows, “you’re not tired?”</p><p>Tzuyu shrugs, shifting her foot in an arc across the pebbles. “I don’t really get tired.”</p><p>Then Chaeyoung surveys her from top to bottom. <em> But your light gets weaker? </em>“Where do you want to go?”</p><p>“Somewhere normal.”</p><p>Chaeyoung isn’t someone that knows normal. </p><p>Tzuyu might’ve sensed this, “someplace you’ve missed going to.” </p><p>After much thought, Chaeyoung then takes her to the cinema. A more dignified sojourn instead of the abandoned playgrounds and lawns and houses. The last she’s been to a cinema was eight years ago, her mother loved the buttered popcorn they serve. </p><p>She buys two tickets but she doesn’t put the bowl of popcorn on the empty seat. People might think she’s lonely, but Tzuyu is laughing beside her with each comical line presented through the screen. She must’ve missed this, doing normal things like this. She must’ve missed being alive.</p><p>“I think the movie was fine,” Tzuyu says, walking out the double doors while passing through the mass.</p><p>Chaeyoung doesn’t remember what the movie was about, but she knows how Tzuyu’s eyes dazzled across the flashing screens, how she looked younger with the mirth dancing in her laughter, and that’s enough confirmation to assure a time well-spent. </p><p>“It was fine,”</p><p>They walk down the cobblestone steps and sort of ambled through the lot, where clicking cars veer to their exit, and they stand in silence until it’s safe enough to have a conversation.</p><p>“The last time I was here, I was on a date,” Tzuyu says. The night air is brisk but it isn’t colder than Tzuyu’s breath against her shoulder.</p><p>“Must’ve had a great time,” Chaeyoung mumbles, pressing her foot against her other foot. It’s not because she’s jealous that anyone has the merit to witness a living and breathing Tzuyu.</p><p>“He was sitting so close to me that I had to run to the bathroom fifteen minutes into the movie.” Tzuyu sighs, there’s no cloud of breath expanding into the sky. “I even called my mom to pick me up,” and then she’s laughing. </p><p>Chaeyoung serves a bitter smile, “I’m glad you didn’t do that to me.”</p><p>As if rehearsed, Tzuyu bares a grin. “I didn’t know this was a date,” she has grown a lot braver. A lot more expressive. It’s sweet.</p><p>“It is,” Chaeyoung says. The cityscape blinks in capturing fragments, the moon is barely visible but Tzuyu isn’t looking at the sky. </p><p>“You don’t sound excited,” Tzuyu is more responsive with Chaeyoung’s slightest changes of demeanor. They’ve become so perceptive of each other, it’s almost impossible to hide anything. “Should we do something else?”</p><p>She thinks of the highlighted terms in her textbook that she still hasn't known the meaning of. </p><p>“We can go somewhere closer to the city,” Tzuyu says when she’s quiet.</p><p>She thinks of the bigger street aligned with food stalls and vendors. It’ll only take a single slip of a misplaced glance before Tzuyu will disappear in the crowd. Any single step could be the last, and would it be so wrong to think that it’s unfair? Maybe Tzuyu is right all along. And would it be ungrateful? </p><p>Because Tzuyu seems unconcerned. Is she not afraid? Her existence is as tangible as her hologram. The truth is everywhere, when Tzuyu has started fading into the whites of her apartment wall. Sometimes, through the colors of her television, Tzuyu drains herself of any semblance of shape and turns into a ray of light.</p><p>Chaeyoung is not yet as brave, but she promises to be better. “It’s late, we might not catch the final bus in time.” She turns to her shoulder, not catching the way Tzuyu is shifting in reprisal.</p><p>“How much time do we have left?” </p><p>“About ten,”</p><p>Tzuyu stares at her foot, she’s been wearing her school uniform since the first she died. Funny how that sounds, because she might die again the second time. </p><p>But don’t be so morose, it isn’t the night to think about death. So Chaeyoung thinks of what Tzuyu will look like in a dress, in a thin shirt, in a sweater, in anything else that is less symbolic to look at. </p><p>“Can I say something to you?” Tzuyu steadies her voice.</p><p>Chaeyoung has never rejected her kind offers, “okay.”</p><p>There are different ways to detect a ghost’s emotions, through their physical expressions or the glow of its light. Tzuyu might not know this, but she’s almost as bright as the signboard of the cinema. Much brighter than she’s ever been before. It’s been a while to see her so alive.</p><p>“You know how I feel about you,” she trembles, a sparkling wave in her grey eyes. “But what comes after <em>liking</em>, I think, is an affection much bigger than I can ever understand.”</p><p>Chaeyoung knows where this is going because Tzuyu has always been so incredibly transparent. </p><p>Watching the other girl, Chaeyoung can feel her heart expanding and expanding, it might even explode. It’s not a terrible feeling. Her legs soften like mush, and she isn’t sure if it comes from the grieve or the bliss. But all she does is fix a lost strand behind her ear. </p><p>“I have never loved anyone,” </p><p>Chaeyoung, too, has never loved anyone before. </p><p>“But then, I-” this is where she starts to frantic, where her shadows turn into crawling fingers, like a storm, where Tzuyu dims in comparison to the streetlight. It fluctuates like a switch. Chaeyoung wants to say, <em>it's okay, </em>like she always does. <em> I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me.  </em></p><p>“I think I might want to start with you.”</p><p>There’s a lot more permanence to be someone’s first love. She’s never thought of becoming more than just a simple <em>someone</em>. </p><p>Chaeyoung smiles, and truly wishes she can hold Tzuyu’s hand, to grasp it tightly, to feel skin against skin, and maybe to thank whatever divinity has blessed the night to stretch longer and...<em>right. </em>The final stop. There’s no other way. They’ll have to walk back home with their hearts entangled into one, because they’re lovers now.</p><p>“I would want that too,” Chaeyoung will remember even the useless information like the distant plane shooting from one corner of the sky to the other, of the blinding headlights passing in motion, of the silent chatters from strangers exiting the cinema.</p><p>If she can draw every memory into life, she’ll remember this night with a ghostless Tzuyu in a dress, and they’re kissing and Chaeyoung is on her tiptoes.</p><p>“Has it been fifteen minutes?” Tzuyu laughs, a breath of relief.</p><p>It’s a successful distraction. “I can’t believe that worked,” Chaeyoung blushes. </p><p>“Let’s walk back home,” they’re smiling together.</p><p>That’s right, it’s become their home now. </p><p>“Okay,”</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>With the finals over, their excursions become something longer than just temporary.</p><p>The snow has only reached their ankles when winter rolls in with the gentle sprinkles of flakes. Soon, the city will erupt in celebration. Soon, the skies will flare-up in the colors of the fireworks. </p><p>They walk out of the apartment exchanging fits of laughter with a recollection of their childhoods. They sort of pinball between which stories to trade. It doesn’t have to be personal. Because they live in the same neighborhood, it only takes them a few glimpses of familiar places, like a minimal store that used to sell rubber toys, maybe an ice cream truck that used to keep playing the same melody every time it rounded the corner, or a nondescript junction where nothing is appealing but then, <em> this is where I got my first scar, right around my knee. I think I sprained my ankle? It was pretty bad. </em></p><p>They’ve started walking in closer proximities, maybe it’s an instinct, once you’ve known to love someone, you’ll just start to drift closer and closer by nature. And yes it’s an instinct, that this yearning to feel each other’s presence more than just a voice, as a visage, as a reflection, or even a shadow, is more intensive.</p><p>“I hate winter,” Tzuyu blanches. They’ve lost the thread of sentences to say, but silence isn’t so terrifying anymore. They’ve reached a space where small talks are more favored and are considered less of a filler. “It soaks my socks, and my nose is always clogged.”</p><p>Chaeyoung sniffs, “I think I can attest to that,” then leads them into a quiet corner of the street where it isn’t the centerpiece, where the people don’t gather around as nearly. They’re waiting for the countdown, staring at the single tallest building that has kept looping a New Year’s commercial for the past few minutes.</p><p>“But I don’t think it’s that bad,” Chaeyoung leans against the wall of a shut-down outlet, she has the conversation cloaked under the disguise of a phone call, with her earphones plugged. The same trick she’s used many times before. “It’s the only season where we can build a snowman.” </p><p>Tzuyu lets a couple of strangers walk through her. She shudders, perhaps it’s quite ticklish. “I prefer snowball fights.” </p><p>“Or you can play by the swings,” Chaeyoung entertains, bobbing her head in slight delight. “It won’t hurt if you fall, the snow is like a mattress.”</p><p>Tzuyu looks at her, peculiar. “That reminds me of something.” She floats out a chuckle, her voice has always been enchanting to listen to. “My father always has to carry me through the winter because I was too small back then. I think I was scared of the snow, I thought I might drown if I jumped in.” She chuckles, the recollection frames a distant twinkle in her eyes. “It’s quite silly.”</p><p>Chaeyoung thinks, <em> I like it when you tell me more about you, </em>but she says, “look at how much you’ve grown.” </p><p>Tzuyu tilts her head, she’s watching Chaeyoung carefully. If only the world can see, how they share the same affection in their eyes. </p><p>“That’s what my mother used to say,” and so suddenly, a blanket of despondency. </p><p>Guilty, Chaeyoung frowns in an instant, “I’m sorry.”</p><p>Tzuyu releases a chortle, it doesn’t sound forced. “I’m the one who’s dead.” The perimeter has started gathering noise, she might have to talk louder. “She’s still alive, Chaeyoung.” The way she says it, like she's trying to be dismissive.</p><p>
  <em> Are you still looking for her? </em>
</p><p>But Chaeyoung pushes the thought away, she doesn’t want to celebrate with a bitter smile. “Can you come closer?” When the strangers have started gathering into their corner. When the time has shortened and there’s only so much left in this year.</p><p>Tzuyu glides to stand in front of Chaeyoung, only a breath away. She has to incline her head to align their eyes. Chaeyoung smiles tenderly, the heart beneath her ribcage prospers in a blossom quite like love.</p><p>Tzuyu is still in a school uniform, <em> it must be cold, </em>but in her fantasy, she might be wearing an appropriate wear, maybe a turtle-neck, snuggled under a coat, her hair slick from the snow, her breath is only cold because it’s winter, and no other reason that is mythical. Her cheeks would blush in a way that Chaeyoung has always imagined, a faint red, and her eyes would drip in honey brown.</p><p>It doesn’t matter. If this is only a fantasy, a kind of wishful thinking. It doesn’t matter. <em> Please don’t let it matter. </em></p><p>“We only have a few more minutes,” Tzuyu whispers. Her fingers smooth across Chaeyoung’s hand, in that desperate attempt to test if she can finally be real again. “I can’t believe we’re spending this together,” </p><p>Chaeyoung lets her heart moist like watered soil, lets herself sink into this moment as it is, because she doesn’t want the time to change, she doesn’t want the concept of forward, she doesn’t want to keep living if it means losing in the end. </p><p>What can possibly be better than this? The future is a tomb, and she’ll never want to watch the ghost returning into her own grave.</p><p>The crowd begins to cheer, hands raised to simulate the remaining seconds. Each chorus of their hollering rises louder and louder with the decreasing span. They’re all looking above, to the building, to the screen. Soon, the skies will be so bright, it’s impossible to be vulnerable.</p><p>But then it’s ten seconds: Tzuyu is losing focus, she’s losing her gaze.</p><p>Chaeyoung frowns the moment it strikes eight, Tzuyu looks past Chaeyoung’s eyes, past the lampost, across the street, and to the other end.</p><p>Tzuyu begins to reconstruct, and there’s faint static at the ends of her frame, some kind of electric stutters. Her face complicates into a mess of anguish, into a bitter realization, into hurt.</p><p>At five, Chaeyoung turns around and there are too many people at the other end, all staring at the same sky. </p><p>At three, Tzuyu has lost grip on loyalty. She runs past the mass and Chaeyoung tries to attend to the sudden rashness, crying out her name while everyone else is shouting the countdown of a celebration.</p><p>She pushes through the shoulders, doesn't even apologize, and only hears her heart pounding, teary-eyed and whimpering because this is not the ending she imagines it to be. Tzuyu isn’t supposed to be the one running away from her. </p><p>And when she’s pushed enough people to clear the cache, when the fireworks combust into the sky like the fourth of July, when reality unveils a new tragic beginning, of the first January; this is not how she imagines her start to become.</p><p>Tzuyu is standing beside a woman who isn’t smiling in the festivity. It is a woman who is crying, her face hidden behind her hands in a strained sob, undermined by the blasts of the fireworks, burning the skies alive.</p><p>Tzuyu doesn’t know Chaeyoung is watching, when she’s muttered <em>mother </em>with each gasp, each breath exhaled, each second into the celebration. When she fumbles her hands to try and touch, feel, and grasp, or just hold, and pretend there’s some semblance of touch. </p><p>“I’m here,” she whispers, her tears flowing in tandem with her mother’s silent wails. “Please, look at me.” She is kneeling in front of her mother, she is begging. “I’m sorry I left you.” Her words are barely coherent.</p><p>Chaeyoung wants to say, <em> I am here. I can look at you. I can forgive you. </em></p><p>But she runs away instead.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>In the turmoil of a lunch break, Chaeyoung was sitting on the top bleacher with Tzuyu on her side. She’s taking small bites of her melon bread, a thoughtful look in her solemn eyes. She wasn’t really thinking of anything, but the next thing she said, wasn’t exactly a safe conversation.</p><p>“Tzuyu,” </p><p>“Yeah,”</p><p>“What do you think is keeping you alive?”</p><p>Blinking, Tzuyu tilted her head. Her shoulders tensed in a manner of perplexity. She might not have known the answer herself. Why was this even brought up, it’s not a good subject to indulge--</p><p>“You mean, as a spirit?”</p><p>Chaeyoung forced bile down her throat, “yeah.” </p><p>Tzuyu looked about the gymnasium, tracking whatever hints were written in the walls to polish the correct words to say. “Maybe it’s you,” it’s a sweet sentiment, but Tzuyu was bending her head down to look at her feet. And that didn’t usually mean good. “Or...myself. You know, maybe I’m just too stubborn.”</p><p>Chaeyoung sealed the plastic of the bread, there’s still half of it left, but she had lost her appetite. “I think there’s something else.”</p><p>Tzuyu was unmoving. “I think so too,”</p><p>When their eyes finally met, they wondered how much time was left. </p><p>“It’s not me, is it,” there wasn’t the slightest drip of hope, no cadence in Chaeyoung’s voice that had wished, <em> let it be me, </em>because the truth was much more bold and stark. She knew, there must’ve been something else more important than her. She knew, she only existed in the second life. She wasn’t yet important in the first to hold Tzuyu back from ascension.</p><p>Tzuyu turned to the ceiling, in an indefinite time, she would be somewhere above, somewhere said to be well and peaceful. It might’ve been unbelievable, but the thought had helped her sleep on most nights. If there’s a heaven, it’s good faith. Chaeyoung would want to believe in one, too. For Tzuyu.</p><p>“I don’t know, Chaeyoung.” She buried her head under her arms, a look of conflict. “I want it to be you, I really do.” </p><p>The terrifying thing was the possibility that there might be no other destination after this death. Not even the consolation of a heaven.</p><p>Tzuyu must’ve been thinking, it’s better to be dead and not know it. Because one day, she’d come upon a desire so potent, she might not be able to resist. She might not be able to choose Chaeyoung again, in this intangible form that gets to love her as her own.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>She reaches the curb of a bus stop, out of breath and nearly deaf. The fireworks have done a toll on her. When she’s running in the opposite direction, she has gained several looks from strangers. The simple, small, unjudging world of their own breaks its brittle glass.</p><p>The cold wind doesn’t help her clogged nose, but that’s every winter for her, and it hasn’t changed for a while.</p><p>On the bench, she leans her head against the wall behind. She digs her boots into the snow, and it might’ve soaked her socks deep within, but she’s been numb for a while now. The snow is a good blanket to be covered underneath.</p><p>Here, with the motion of a snowfall, she hides her face behind her mitten hands. It’s been a while since she’s felt alone, it didn’t use to be so terrifying.</p><p>There’s a distant flop of sheeted snow. Aside from that, everything else is quiet. Nobody has to wander the streets when it’s a celebration on the other side.</p><p>But this is the place where Tzuyu had told her she might remember Chaeyoung forever. </p><p>She puffs a breath, she’s been imbued with fantasy, she’s almost forgotten her true reality. This is where she is, a place desolated of anything warm. It’s not a self-given punishment, she’s not unkind to herself, she’s not cruel, but it’s been true for a while now. </p><p>Maybe it’s time to accept, even if it’s harder to let go. </p><p>Lifting her head, she wipes a trail of snot, but then Tzuyu is standing in the center of the street. Her eyes have returned to grey, and she’s still so transparent, she could’ve sunk into the snow and nobody would find her there. </p><p>It’s never occurred to her that Tzuyu can look as cold as she feels against her skin. She thought Tzuyu wasn’t coming back. And would that be better? If the rapture is quick and silent.</p><p>“Chaeyoung,” it’s a voice without an echo. The piles of snow have soaked whatever noise, that they’re left quite with nothing. “I’m s-”</p><p>Chaeyoung shakes her head, drops a single tear held back from her lids. “That’s not what I want.”</p><p>She supposes this is what will break her. Tzuyu has never looked afraid but under the sleet, she doesn’t dare step a foot closer to Chaeyoung. </p><p>“I’ve always been useless, haven’t I,” Tzuyu whispers.</p><p>Chaeyoung chokes out a sob, leans her head to her shoulder so she doesn’t have to carry all the weight. “You looked like you have a lot of regrets, back then.”</p><p>It’s unlike what she’s ever felt before, when Tzuyu crawls over the wet concrete to lay a touch on her mother’s knee, it’s the most shattering, broken desperation she’s ever seen.</p><p>“We can pretend this never happens,”</p><p>No, that’s not a solution.</p><p>“If you want to leave, you just have to tell me,” her eyes are sealed from frozen tears, she doesn’t exert any effort to open them. She imagines Tzuyu beyond a mesh of white, camouflaging, and it’s a terrible visage. </p><p>“Please,” the voice lilts louder. </p><p>When she finally relents, she sees that Tzuyu is kneeling on the snow. Her eyes are swollen, her lips downturned in a permanent hurt. “It doesn’t have to be so early.”</p><p>“I don’t want to hold you back,” Chaeyoung says.</p><p>“I know,” Tzuyu is tender, as if the notion of dying doesn’t freight her anymore. “I can feel it too, that I’m losing my edge.”</p><p>Chaeyoung exhales, that final truth has been said. There’s no more pretending now. “Don’t you want to be with them instead?” Chaeyoung sees the affection that is pure and untainted, for a family that has all the love. If she’s Tzuyu, she would want to watch them in her final moments, too.</p><p>“What’s the use,” it’s the first that her voice starts to break. “They can’t see me, and if I ever found them crying because of me-I...I don’t like feeling helpless again.” She traces the knits of Chaeyoung’s mittens, folded on her lap. “You’re the only reason I’m not invisible.”</p><p>She strangles her hand tighter. What were they thinking, when they started falling in love, as if there would be anything good at the end. If she’s selfish, she would wish to have never met Tzuyu at all, let her shiver in the cold without a duvet to keep her warm. It would be easier, for both of them.</p><p>But that would never happen, even through fifty different lives.</p><p>“Chaeyoung, we don’t have to rush this.” Tzuyu regains her stern. She’s looking up at her in a plea for Chaeyoung to return the same hope. </p><p>“I just want to help you,” Chaeyoung says. She doesn’t want to be a hindrance. “When you’re ready, I’ll take you to them. You don’t have to lie to me, I know you’d want to come home, too.” She wants them to be forgiving of this situation, not vengeful. </p><p>In Tzuyu’s eyes, when there’s no point in hiding them, there’s a glimmer of hope. She might have wanted this for a long time. And she’s probably been lying this whole time, for their sake.</p><p>She lays her head above Chaeyoung’s lap, her flesh beneath the mittens tingles in bits of frost. “Thank you,” there’s still time. </p><p>They don’t have to make this miserable. </p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>They keep up with the daily excursions that have grown to become more of a chore rather than a fresh experience. Chaeyoung thinks that their habitual expeditions are nothing but a red herring for the real, unwanted truth that lies at the very end. </p><p>It’s not necessary to keep reminding herself, she knows this, too.</p><p>It’s not healthy to be so pessimistic, Tzuyu has said them, too.</p><p>“If you’re thinking about it, then you should stop thinking about it,” Tzuyu is looking from her shoulder, where she sits on the floor. Chayeoung is on the couch, not listening to the commercials, not watching Tzuyu in her momentary glances, not anywhere else, because how can she be anywhere else when she can’t stop the heavy burden dragging down her chest.</p><p>Tzuyu tilts her body until she’s facing Chaeyoung, crouching at the bent of her knees. “We should make the most of our time, but if you’re always unhappy then what am I supposed to do?” </p><p>It’s not her intent to drag anyone else down to this void, but it’s there, and there’s nothing she can do about it. One morning, Tzuyu might only be missing from the side of the bed and she might never live again. One second, she might be chuckling at reality shows on the television, and it’ll only echo as her final sound. There’s nothing she can do about it. </p><p>“I’m still here, why are you already grieving?” Tzuyu hugs Chaeyoung’s knees. She’s become resolute to the freezing temperatures, that she barely shivers anymore. </p><p>She wants to rewind, keep everything inside her palms, and rekindle them as something warm.</p><p>“I hate how silent you’ve become.”</p><p>But Tzuyu doesn’t know that Chaeyoung sees how she’s been staring into a forlorn distance with her head bent low, how she’s left Chaeyoung’s side on certain nights to perhaps look at the moon, or maybe she’s never looking at a moon, maybe there’s a location she’s been longing to return to and time’s the only hurdle she’ll have to leap through.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Tzuyu says.</p><p>
  <em> You don’t have to keep apologizing. </em>
</p><p>“It is unfair,” Tzuyu starts to glisten through her eyes. </p><p>They don’t have to make this miserable. </p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>In retrospect, Chaeyoung wishes that the dead aren’t actually dead. She hopes that by some miracle, Tzuyu is still alive in further parts of the universe. </p><p>These days, Chaeyoung can’t even make heads or tails about Tzuyu’s reflection in the mirror. Sometimes, in a horrid image, Chaeyoung sees the ghost fracturing and trembling like it’s about to snap a bolt and disappear like lightning.</p><p>Waking up becomes a nightmare. Upon consciousness, she has to take a gamble. If Tzuyu is lying on her side, it's divine mercy. If she’s in the living room, it’ll only cause a slight startle. If she’s nowhere to be found, then there’s nothing she can do about it.</p><p>The subtle signs start showing and they’re less about the way Tzuyu stares through the window each night they sleep on the same bed, but more about the way her hologram is barely resembling a human. </p><p>She’s afraid Tzuyu will turn into something unrecognizable.</p><p>One evening, they’re in the living room. It’s quiet and that means Chaeyoung is going to ask something stupid, “can you tell me how you’re feeling?” Something sad and bitter, that shouldn’t be what's filling their remaining time.</p><p>Tzuyu snaps her gaze from the window to look past the counter where Chaeyoung sits by the dinner table. Tzuyu’s frame is still fathomable, not yet a scribbled mess. “My feelings?”</p><p>“We promised, remember.” Chaeyoung hates being upfront, it’s always easier to be vague. “When you’re ready, we can do something about...this.”</p><p>Tzuyu turns to mute the television in the midst of a documentary. “But are you ready?”</p><p>Chaeyoung tilts her head, and wonders if she’s feeling offended or insufficient. “Of course not.” And maybe that’s a confession, not as gentle as it’s supposed to be.</p><p>Tzuyu stills, unblinking. She must’ve wanted to say something like a- “sorry,”</p><p>Shutting her eyes, Chaeyoung feels helpless to say anything opposing. There has been something exhausting festering in her lately. She’s having a hard time finding an appetite, being anywhere else aside from the bed, or even sleeping. After a while, she professes, “I want to know how you feel.”</p><p>The admission feels like a scrap torn from a piece of herself. Being vulnerable is never easy, but it’s a brave step forward.</p><p>Tzuyu doesn’t answer right away, she remains elusive, watching Chaeyoung in her silent struggles. “If you want me to be honest, it might hurt you.”</p><p>Chaeyoung is beyond the warning signs now, “I’ll be okay.” </p><p>It’s fair to concede that Tzuyu won’t be visible for long, that in one blink Tzuyu might vanish without leaving a trace behind. They’ve both accepted that fate, but it’s never a harm to express oneself. <em> What does it feel to live a second chance knowing you’ll be dead again soon enough? </em>But Chaeyoung doesn’t ask that. </p><p>“I think,” Tzuyu whispers, her eyes are glacial. “I think I know what can save me.”</p><p><em> Save. </em>What a bitter word. </p><p>Grimacing, Chaeyoung finds it hard to look straight into Tzuyu’s eyes. “That’s...good.”</p><p>“There’s somewhere I’d like to be,” Tzuyu glides closer, in long strides. “And I feel like if I’m going to be there, I won’t be coming back to you.”</p><p>Chaeyoung thinks of her afterlife, without the ghost haunting her back. But that’s not a good sentiment. Tzuyu is nothing like a ghost, like the horrible portrayals in movies, in hazy nightmares. She’s nothing like that. </p><p>And what will happen to Chaeyoung if she’s gone? How is she supposed to prove the grief that she will carry? There’s no keepsake, no legacy, not even a fabric of their own truth. If this truth is even true at all. </p><p>Because these are the facts, that Tzuyu is alive in Chaeyoung’s present, but she’s dead everywhere else.</p><p>How are they supposed to tiptoe between both worlds, without having to trip into one or the other?</p><p>“Hey,” Tzuyu says, her hands are resting above Chaeyoung’s lap. “This feels like I have to choose.”</p><p>There isn’t supposed to be a choice. But that’s egotistical, and not selfless. </p><p>“And you’re not going to choose me.” Chaeyoung bores her eyes down at the hands on her thighs. She’s aching to touch them. Tzuyu doesn’t answer.</p><p>“It’s okay,” Chaeyoung says. “Whatever it is, you don’t have to be alone with it. I can be there for you, too.” It’s her form of love, that she holds her trembling breath and keeps it steady down the base of her throat. She swallows back the tightness against her chest and blinks fast enough to keep herself smiling.</p><p>They perform a semblance of an embrace, something that brings a chill down Chaeyoung's bones. It’s not a perfect one, Tzuyu might have sunk a few fingers down her spine which makes it unrealistic. But they don’t have to make this miserable.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>The next morning, they lay in the shallow waters of their bed. Tzuyu is here, a soothing presence. Chaeyoung poises her arms above her belly, watching the rifts of valleys mapped into her ceiling. What if it tears apart and destroys everything including herself? If they become one entity, they might be able to hold hands.</p><p>“I feel like a feather,” Tzuyu whispers. </p><p>Her glow is a dimmed moonlight, her cold has turned less cold, and more to nothingness. Chayeoung isn’t the only one falling apart.</p><p>“Does it mean you’ll fly away when it’s finally time?” It’s a rare assumption; it neither sounds like a friend or foe.</p><p>She hears a scoff, “without any wings?”</p><p>Chaeyoung mulls it over, biting the flesh of her lip. “Not like a bird, more like a dust.” She’s imagining it, how it’ll look like. “You’ll turn weightless until you can’t even form a shape anymore.” </p><p>The silence that cloaks the atmosphere is dreadful. </p><p>“That’s horrible,” Tzuyu mumbles.</p><p>They leave the apartment after lunch, Chaeyoung layers a pullover sweater underneath a winter coat. She slips the sketchbooks into a sling bag, then Tzuyu adds a beanie as a nonchalant suggestion, Chaeyoung thinks why not. </p><p>The streets are less of a canvas when puddles of concrete have formed from the melting snow. There are occasional cars zigzagging in a path that is not covered in white. A street sweeper trims a passage through the expanse. The sunlight blinks in a sparkle through wet surfaces. </p><p>Chaeyoung’s nose is starting to clog. She snuggles her hands deeper into her pocket. “Is the bus working?” Her voice is raspy.</p><p>“We can take the train,” Tzuyu is quite the anomaly amongst the winter background. With her school uniform, which never wrinkles even the slightest, and her feet which are bare and, hopefully, immune to the cold. </p><p>“Is it far?”</p><p>“About an hour, at most.” </p><p>Then they walk down to the station where there’s nobody else aside from the cleaners who huff exasperatedly due to the freckles of snow causing the slippery linoleum. </p><p>The seats are mostly empty, they pick the furthest back where it’ll take the trolley around five minutes to reach their end. It’s a hassle for the staff to walk down the long aisle only to serve them a glass of warm orange juice and a donut. </p><p>Chaeyoung mostly leans her head against the grating bumps of the window. Tzuyu is somewhere in the front section, playing funny faces with a kid or watching a wagging dog, whatever she’s doing. </p><p>But when Tzuyu returns to her seat, she is restless with a childish giddiness. “Chaeyoung, listen. I’ll never get the chance to do this once it’s over,” she is breathless even as she’s talking. “It sounds crazy but, I’ll see you when you’ve arrived. I’ll catch up to you.” She’s stumbling through the sentence, and Chaeyoung is half-asleep when she mutters, “what?”</p><p>But it’s too late because then Tzuyu leaps from the train into the flashing meadows stretching beyond where Chayeoung can ever reach, behind the window. She must’ve gasped, or more dramatically, screamed. The staff is somewhere in the front section of the train. </p><p>“Tzuyu?” But the girl is already running across the lush of marigolds, a quick flipbook of white flickering with yellow. With her arms stretched, Tzuyu tries to be seen but she’s not fast enough to race the train so Chayeoung has to incline her head to follow Tzuyu’s diminishing frame.</p><p>Without much thought, Chaeyoung rushes to the observation car at the very back, her hands gripping the railings while the strong gust of wind is adamant to push her backward, forcing her eyes to squint through the view. Her hair’s a turmoil, and Tzuyu is somewhere there, across the fields, cloaked under the remaining sheets of snow. </p><p>She should be there.</p><p>In a few minutes, Chaeyoung is out of breath, slightly teary-eyed from the wind, and something else she’s terrified to admit. She doesn’t return to her seat until the end of the ride.</p><p>The staff has to find her because they’re coming to a stop. He’s eyeing her with a strange look on his face. Maybe because of the extra layers of baggage under her eyes, maybe because she’s been shouting a name even when she’s been alone the entire ride.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do as a child,” Tzuyu says, breath steady and not the slightest bit hastened or jumbled from all the running. “I’m always watching from the windows and I just want to know what it feels like to run across the field.” Her smile jingles like an ornament.</p><p>Chaeyoung starts to ache, somewhere in her ribs, somewhere in her heart. “Did you like it?” </p><p>Tzuyu huffs then breathes out a small chortle, and there’s so much mirth in her little gestures, they might swell with all these bright colors. “I’m not as fast as I thought, but fast enough.”</p><p>They stand on the empty terminal, where the train has left for another stop. This world has always been just for the two of them.</p><p>In Chaeyoung’s version of reality, Tzuyu is disarrayed with her hair sticking out in awkward angles. There’s a stem of golden petal perched on her crown, and Chaeyoung stretches to swipe it away. Then she reaches to adjust the slipping scarf around Tzuyu’s neck, and they’ll hold each other for a little longer until their arms would ache. “What’s up with you?” Tzuyu might rasp out, a tremble in her chest from a low giggle. “I’ve missed this,” Chaeyoung says against her chest. And then they’re just like everybody else. Who’s touched enough, felt enough, seen enough--</p><p>“Don’t make that a habit,” Tzuyu says, she’s watching her with something quite like knowing. “Dozing off, it’s not a good habit.”</p><p>Chaeyoung sighs, turns to the skies, and thinks of her cold hands instead of Tzuyu. “We should hurry before it gets dark.”</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>It’s dusk when they reach the doorstep. Tzuyu lifts her hand in motion, ready to knock only to slip through the surface. Chaeyoung lifts a brow. </p><p>“It’s...you know, reflex.” Tzuyu scratches her nape.</p><p>When Chaeyoung knocks her fist against the coarse wood, they don’t hear a sign of living for the first few minutes.</p><p>“Are they out?” Tzuyu is fidgety with her feet, tapping against the welcome carpet though it doesn’t make a sound. “No, they don’t really go anywhere if it’s winter.” She’s muttering to herself.</p><p>“We should wait,” Chaeyoung says.</p><p>After a while, the door unbuckles, and through the slip of the door, there isn’t a ray of light. The stranger inside the cottage doesn’t reveal themselves through the crack, they remain hidden behind the wood. “Who is it?”</p><p>Chayeoung looks over to Tzuyu who’s frozen with her eyes paralyzed like ice.</p><p>Clearing her throat, Chaeyoung stammers, “um, it’s. I’m Tzuyu’s friend. And I...I came to give you something.” Because there’s an ugly silence and Tzuyu is barely breathing on her side, Chaeyoung forces out, “Tzuyu might want you to see this.”</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>Chaeyoung is served a warm cup of chamomile as she sits on a tarnished couch with its fabric pulling out from the armchair. She hasn’t been able to be functional as of yet, not when Tzuyu is paused at the doorway just ahead of the entrance, watching her mother padding between the kitchen and the living room.</p><p>When she’s done with the formality, she asks, “where do you live?” Chaeyoung keeps her eyes at Tzuyu, who’s keeping a mute expression. “It must be cold outside, I could barely get out of bed these days.” She smiles, a motherly warmth.</p><p>Chaeyoung frames her face under the curtain of her hair, “no-actually, it was fine.” Then she thinks that it must’ve sounded too abrupt and Tzuyu might want her to say something noteworthy, to save a better impression for some other opportunity when they’d finally--but why would that even matter.</p><p>“Tzuyu told me the address,” she adds, a little unreasonable. Maybe to sound believable. </p><p>“Ah,” the mother nods, her voice cracking at the end. “You must’ve been a very close friend. She has never brought anyone here.”</p><p>Chaeyoung nods, polite. But she can feel the frown that begins to shape. In the doorway, Tzuyu is not moving. Chaeyoung wants to be sympathetic and say something like, <em> don’t you want to be closer to her? </em> when Tzuyu is only watching in her cowardice but then, Chaeyoung can’t really blame her.</p><p>“What did she give you?” When the mother looks up at Chaeyoung, her eyes are looking like the surface of a brimming dam.</p><p>Chaeyoung swallows her mounting bile, and steadies her voice when she says, “a letter.” Then turns to take it from her sling bag so she doesn’t have to witness how the mother begins to break with the first few sequences of a sob.</p><p>“Here,” she slides it across the coffee table, her hands trembling and she wants to believe it’s from the cold. </p><p>The mother doesn’t reach for it in an instant, she stares at it longer, and she must’ve been afraid to be vulnerable, too. </p><p>After a while, she unfolds the piece of paper and reads. Chaeyoung knows what it wrote, she was the one who jotted it down when Tzuyu rambled all her thoughts just the night before the train ride. They’ve managed to remain unscathed through the scribing, but she isn’t sure about this time.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> You might be wondering how I got to write this down, but that shouldn’t matter now. I wanted to say this for a consolation, that it’s okay to let go of me, now.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Because it happened so suddenly, I never got to say thank you. For being kind to me. And sorry, I used to lie about liking your handmade pie. I used to hate coming back home because...that happens to everyone, doesn’t it? I was young and ungrateful. If I have the chance, I would want to return everything back to you. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Sorry, that I left. Too early. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> There’s not much to say, really.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I love you, </em>
</p><p> </p><p>She shouldn’t clutch the paper so hard, now, shouldn’t she? It might tear apart the margins, and her tears might create holes in the sheet that she’ll regret later on. When the writings would turn indiscernible, that wouldn’t be good. </p><p>And Tzuyu is there on her knees, crying though she isn’t wailing, with her head on her mother’s lap, muttering the same mantra over and over again, <em> it’s okay. </em></p><p>They stay until it’s dawn, until the paper has permanent wrinkles, until Tzuyu has regained enough strength to leave the door and to never return again. They stand by the porch, for a while. The ambiance is grave. Not a single cricket, or a firefly.</p><p>Tzuyu is almost fading entirely. </p><p>“One last destination,” she mumbles. Chayeoung can only watch. “There’s one last place,” Tzuyu never speaks above a whisper after then.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>They take the train back home and Tzuyu doesn’t run through the fields anymore. The marigolds aren’t golden anymore, only an ordinary field casts under a dark cloak. They preserved the silence through the ride, at some point, there’s almost no communication until their fingers start to touch. </p><p>Chaeyoung is looking at it now, her pinky which is severed and chipped, and Tzuyu’s that is lean and polished and neat. A compatible contrast.</p><p>When they’ve reached the stop, the train halts and Chaeyoung is standing up but Tzuyu is bent with her head covered in her hands. She’s trying her best to wipe the snot across her cheeks, down the philtrum, down her chin, she’s been crying quite a while now. “I’m sorry, I-” </p><p>“No, it’s okay.” </p><p>They sit there longer until the staff has to motion the exit. </p><p>Tzuyu doesn’t say anything after, but Chaeyoung knows death is certainly a terrifying thing.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>It was some time ago, in their nightly excursions, when they’re walking back home. </p><p>Chaeyoung was swinging a plastic bag filled with several cans of coffee to keep her through the night for more crammings to do. There was a spring in her steps. Tzuyu was beside her, quite the contrast. She was more silent than ever.</p><p>“Chaeyoung,” she said, her tone diminutive and unneeding, like a whimper.</p><p>“Huh?” Chayeoung turned around, still unsuspecting. </p><p>Tzuyu played with the hem of her uniform, she’s maintaining a placid expression. “You know, when I’m...gone, I guess.” She took a breath, sensing the difficult approach at this. “I just,” she sighed. “I don’t want you to grieve too much.”</p><p>Chaeyoung was quiet, she wasn’t sure what to say. But then, <em> how could I not? </em></p><p>Tzuyu scratched her nape, “I don’t think I want you to remember me like that.”</p><p>Tzuyu was avoiding Chaeyoung’s eyes when she’s desperately searching for them. “Like what,” she said, barely above a whisper. In that silence, it’s almost a sin to say anything. </p><p>Tzuyu shrugged, her mouth shifted to say something but there’s only uncertainty for a while, “my mother used to say that if someone truly loves you, when they are leaving, they don’t really want to be part of the grief. They don’t want to be pain, rather, I guess, make them into something more acceptable, maybe love.”</p><p>Chaeyoung kept searching for Tzuyu’s eyes. Something about her was fragile that night. She must've been thinking a lot about this. </p><p>“You’re saying that I have to let you go,” Chaeyoung tested, her voice prodding.</p><p>Tzuyu shook her head, “no, not exactly forgetting. But just...remember me as a good thing.” Chaeyoung saw the frown on her face, despite the angled bent of her head facing the ground. “I’m sorry if that’s too much--”</p><p>“No, Tzuyu.” There was a new resolution in the way she had said it, “in my sketchbooks, I’ve always drawn you with a smile.” She walked closer to Tzuyu and kneeled down to find the face that was facing the ground. “I promise. I’ll remember you the good way.”</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>They stand as the only living beside the headstones, across the barrows clasping up wilting roses and daisies. The graveyard is a dark desert without sunlight, without the barest glow of moonlight. But the headstones are homes for the spirits, awaiting their vanishing days, for the carriage to carry them somewhere. It’s a small town for the ghosts that emit a sad glow; the only source of light.</p><p>They are watching the carved initials of <em> Chou Tzuyu, </em>and there are the fading colors of variant flowers above the barrow.</p><p>When Chaeyoung looks up to Tzuyu, she is the smallest, lesser being among all the ambling spirits. </p><p>“How do I look,” Tzuyu asks, her voice is hoarse from crying. </p><p>“Dead,” </p><p>Tzuyu scoffs, “more than when we first met?”</p><p>“You look tired,” </p><p>Tzuyu looks down, she hasn’t tossed a glance on her tombstone ever since their arrival. Chaeyoung knows death is certainly a terrifying thing.</p><p>“My mother’s grave is just in that corner,” Chaeyoung points up ahead, a direction stemming from her own brain memory. It’s been a while since she’s last visited here, it’s been a while since she’s finally been able to recuperate from that vengeance. </p><p>“Then you must've been here a lot,” Tzuyu says, her eyes are less swollen now that they’re looking at each other. It’s kind that Tzuyu doesn’t say, <em> you never told me that, </em>because she won’t know what to say next.</p><p>“A few times.”</p><p>“Are you used to seeing them? The ghosts, I meant.”</p><p>Chaeyoung remembers when she was younger, how she couldn't sleep at most nights because there’s always a distant wailing somewhere in her apartment. “Of course, they’re kind of everywhere.” Maybe after this, she'll be more forgiving.</p><p>Tzuyu hums, a thoughtful sound. </p><p>Then in the quiet, Chaeyoung is desperate to break something again. “Maybe you’re wrong about this,” Chaeyoung’s voice is rattling. “Maybe we still have a lot more time.”</p><p>Tzuyu just smiles. Chaeyoung is expecting something like an agreement, that Tzuyu will stand and say <em>let’s go, </em>and they can return to their nightly excursions, watching the television from the couch, laying pliant on the bed, and being simple, because they’re not really asking for much.</p><p>But instead, Tzuyu says, “you brought the sketchbook.” She’s looking at the sling bag. “That’s nice.” </p><p>Chaeyoung swipes a thumb across the peeking spine of the book, “I don’t know, it’s dumb. I thought maybe, you’d come back and you’d see it and--”</p><p>“Yeah, no. It’s okay.” It feels like they’ve reached a dead end.</p><p>And Chaeyoung is out of options, but a few more minutes is still some time to spend. They just have to say anything. “Do you want me to draw you?” She is searching into the sling bag for the sketchbook but her hand is shaking. "I might have a few empty pages left--"</p><p>“Chaeyoung, I don’t look so well.” It’s said in a weary breath. </p><p>And she’s right. Tzuyu’s glow is a nervous light. It looks like she needs a lot of force just to remain shining, and it’s not even that bright.</p><p>There’s a wailing in the background, the spirits aren’t always mute but they’re never as loud in graveyards or the cemeteries. It’s not as bad as it sounds. This place isn’t purgatory, not exactly. It’s somewhere that is stripped bare of any pretense, because suffering is everywhere, but is never as apparent if you’re blind to these spirits walking through life. They’re not monsters, not really. At least, Tzuyu isn’t one.</p><p>In the midst of it all, they are sitting side by side, close to the barrow but not above it. Chaeyoung plays with the petals of the flowers.</p><p>“Have I lived a good life?” Sometimes Tzuyu asks questions like she expects Chaeyoung to have every answer in the back of her pocket.</p><p>“I don’t know,” at least she’s being honest. </p><p>“I guess this is good enough,” </p><p>Tzuyu is looking at the ground and she's fading now, but she’s always been fading recently. Her toes are blending with the soil, and there’s nothing they can do about this. </p><p>Chaeyoung looks up, shaking her head, “no, don’t be complacent about this.” Her voice is weak.</p><p>Tzuyu keeps smiling but it tapers with each second.</p><p>“Do something about it,” Chaeyoung whispers, her hands start to reach for Tzuyu when she forgets they can’t ever touch. "Fight it, please," but begging is nothing but a futile device, now that she's disappearing. </p><p>“I think, this is it.” </p><p>Chaeyoung shakes her head, looking down because she doesn’t want to be haunted from this again. She is plucking the grass from the soil, because the flowers are there for a reason, and she keeps shaking her head. </p><p>“Please look at me,” and because Chaeyoung can’t, Tzuyu is the one who steadies a hand against her cheek, an invisible touch, it doesn’t even shudder her skin the slightest. </p><p>“I think I’ll remember you forever,” Chaeyoung says.</p><p>There’s only her head now, and the shoulder that bears her arms, and it’s slowly evaporating, in molecules, washing away and they’re rising to the skies. Chaeyoung stretches her hands to take something with her, to touch the skin she’s been wanting to feel. To leave anything behind. </p><p>“Thank you,” Tzuyu clasps her eyes in simple contentment.</p><p>When Chaeyoung blinks, and she’s gone, there’s nothing left to see. The rest of the dead bodies are rising from the grave, and they’re glowing in a new spring of life, their second one.</p><p>Chaeyoung sits on the grass watching the lamppost that doesn’t flicker anymore, the shrub that has grown thicker than the picket fence. </p><p>There are two sketchbooks above the barrow, if Tzuyu has the time to reach the earth the third time, in reincarnation, or in another parallel life, Chaeyoung hopes that she can find it. And maybe, they can have this over and over again.</p><p> </p><p>✞✞✞</p><p> </p><p>She’s somewhere in the cottage home, where Tzuyu used to live. </p><p>After the night in the graveyard, Chaeyoung came home weeping and she knew she would be losing sleep for the rest of her life. She might have dropped out of school and returned to drawing, though it’s always the face of a girl, with big bright eyes, and they’re not grey anymore. </p><p>“These are her pictures when she’s younger.” The mother showed her the night Chaeyoung came with unmatching slippers, with a slight bruise on her knee. She didn’t know she had taken the train until she’s already standing at the doorstep. The father was there, he didn’t question why Chaeyoung was crying and why his wife had accepted her so willingly.</p><p>The pictures are nice. In one of them, Tzuyu is wearing a red dress, taken in an angle from above, and she’s smiling. Chaeyoung asks if she can keep it, the mother says yes.</p><p>She cooks Chaeyoung a bowl of chicken soup, and she keeps looking at the picture while waiting for the water to boil, drawing it in her head. </p><p>The mother offers to stay for a night, and Chaeyoung wants to decline but she doesn’t because the mother opens the door to Tzuyu’s room, saying, “this is where you’ll sleep.”</p><p>Nobody has ever been here before, the mother tells her. Everything stays right where it’s supposed to be, the shape of Tzuyu’s frame might have implanted itself onto the bed, forming with its creases. There are sweaters thrown into a heap, towels folded on the back of the chair.</p><p>Chaeyoung never knows what Tzuyu would smell like in her school uniform, and in this room, she is engulfed in a scent quite like lavender. She breathes deeper as she traces her finger across the walls. Tzuyu was someone who had a lot of friends, with a lot of hobbies, with a lot of achievements. "This was me in elementary," Tzuyu might say. "This was when I had my first trophy," she would smile. "Chaeyoung, you could've been there." Her eyes are starting to sting. </p><p>She never knows what Tzuyu was like before she died, never had the time to know everything about each other. So she wants to stay here forever, walking down memory lane together. When she finds the letter on top of the study desk, Chaeyoung reads it again, remembering how Tzuyu had stared into the muted television while she recited her thoughts.</p><p>Chaeyoung fits herself on the bed, staring at the ceiling that has similar rifts like her own apartment. She thinks, if it’s to tear apart and destroy everything else including herself, she might never see Tzuyu as who she was before, with the polaroids hanging on loose strings, taped across the door of her wardrobe. </p><p>She holds the picture close to her chest and when the bed is soft enough for her aching spine, when the space is big enough almost for two, she feels herself falling into peace. And sometime at midnight, she hears Tzuyu on the empty side of the bed, breathing gently. There’s the ghost of touch against her pinky, intertwining until it’s clasped into a promise.</p><p>In the morning, she'll know it's a dream, the picture will be in her back pocket, and she'll hum a song she'll have a title for. The mother is waiting in the kitchen, saying that she wants to teach her how to bake a pie.</p><p>In the grand scheme of things, Chaeyoung thinks to herself, <em>this should be enough.</em></p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I think this ends up being way longer than intended, but I hope this ending is sufficient. I'm sorry if it's not up to expectations, or if it's somewhat disappointing, writing the final chapter is quite a challenge because it deals a lot with grieve. </p><p>Anyways, I really hope it's an enjoyable ride, and thank you for reading &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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